Category Archives: 2007 Season

Game 138: White Sox at Tigers

PREGAME: The Tigers return home and take on the White Sox. The White Sox haven’t been playing good ball lately, but then again neither have the Tigers. The pitching matchup will be Jeremy Bonderman taking on Jon Garland.

The Tigers have only faced Garland once this season and picked up 3 runs on 5 hits in 8 innings.

Bonderman corrected his first inning problems, or at least he avoided them in his last start. He only allowed 1 run on 6 hits in a strong outing against the Royals. He walked none for the first time since July 13th and it was particularly refreshing after he had walked 4 and 5 in his previous 2 starts.

In the good news department Gary Sheffield is set to return on Thursday and is feeling better. So hopefully we won’t see any more situations where Omar Infante is batting 3rd and DH’ing. It kind of shows you how far out of favor that Sean Casey has fallen, plus Infante is 15-35 lifetime off of Garland.

Game Time 7:05
CHW @ DET, Tuesday, September 4, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Another day, another loss, another one of those “this game was a microcosm of the season” efforts. Bonderman alternated between looking great (1st and 3rd innings) pounding the strike zone and hitting his spots with his fastball and slider, and pitching scared where he couldn’t command the fastball and couldn’t find the strike zone. He repeatedly fell behind 2-0 and 3-0 and it eventually caught up to him in the form of Alex Freakin Cintron.

Still he was good enough to keep the game close, even as the Tigers added a couple defensive goofs with Carlos Guillen at first and Marcus Thames in leftfield. Zach Miner provided 3 2/3 scoreless innings, enough to make fans think the Tigers still had a shot.

And then the offense showed some late life, finally breaking the shutout on a tremendous at-bat by Guillen before fizzling out with weak ABs from Pudge and Thames. If only they could have plated that runner on 3rd, then they would be in solo-homer striking distance. But even then, those days where anyone in the lineup could hit one out are gone. Inge hasn’t had that ability for over 2 months now, and Pudge is pretty far removed, and as nice as Ramon Santiago has played he’s not exactly a threat either. Inffact, of the Tigers last 14 homers, 11 have come from the bats of Ordonez/Guillen/Granderson. Not so much the balanced attack of earlier in the year.

Still, some pinch hit success from unexpected sources (Timo Perez and Sean Casey), plus a very surprising walk from Inge (who was choking up with 2 strikes on him) breathed enough life into the team so that you actually thought they had a shot, only to drop another one – this time with Curtis Granderson making the final out.

Another day, another loss.

Crushed in Oakland

I wish I could say that this was easily the Tigers most devastating loss, but really that would require more time to sort through them. It’s easily in the top 2 in terms of crushing losses to the A’s this year though.

Inexplicably the Tigers blew a 7 run lead to the A’s, and missed a chance to gain ground on the 3 teams they are chasing. With the Indians, Mariners, and Yankees all losing, the Tigers had a chance to gain in both their wild card and divisional chances. Some might say that at least they didn’t lose ground, but the fact of the matter is they did. In the last month of the season everyday you’re not moving up, your moving down because that’s one less game you have a chance to win.

The emotional response is to say this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. That the team can’t possibly compete after this and it’s all over. At least that was my initial reaction and I’m much more glass half full than many. I know many had already written the season off but I’m an optimist – plus I checked the standings and the Tigers still are in the hunt for a playoff spot.

A popular refrain after losses like this are complaints about a lack of heart or a lack of urgency. Comments on the demeanors of players and the managers and other critiques that really can’t be backed up one way or another. The postgame analysis is heavily influenced by the results instead of the actions. Case in point, when Justin Verlander is dominating and getting quickly back up on the rubber and not pausing between pitches, “he’s on a mission.” But when he does the exact same thing and struggles, he isn’t on a mission, then “he’s rushing it, he needs to slow it down.”

The same is true of this lack of heart argument. Was there a lack of heart before the first pitch was thrown and it was 0-0? How did the lead get to be 7 runs in the first place? Nate Robertson was pitching a perfect game and the Tigers had received some timely 2 out (i.e. clutch) hits.

As for the lack of urgency, how about Jim Leyland turning to his big 3 relievers for the last 3 innings despite having a 5 run lead. He wanted this game, and he managed it with a sense of urgency. He even brought in Pudge and interrupted what would have been 2 full days off because of the issues when Rabelo catches Jones.

The fact of the matter is that Rodney and Jones got lit up. I don’t think it has anything to do with heart, urgency, swagger, or any other nonsense. Rodney couldn’t find the strike zone for the first time in a month and he got hammered. Cameron Maybin lost a ball in the sun, much like Nick Swisher did a couple innings earlier only Swisher recovered in time. Todd Jones allowed just his 3rd homer of the season, and then proceeded to start playing whack-a-mole around the plate. (really poor timing for Jonesy on a day when he bashes talk show radio hosts – if it weren’t for Michigan losing this would be the only thing discussed by Greg Brady on Jamie and Brady Tuesday morning) What do any of these things have to do with heart? Two of the team’s most effective relievers and a 20 year old who’s been with the team for 3 weeks cost the team a game because they didn’t have heart? It just doesn’t make sense.

Blame this one on the bullpen. Blame it on Leyland’s lineup if you wish (which scored 7 runs incidentally). Blame it on a lack of heart if it makes you feel better. But sometimes crap happens. And it’s just happening an awful lot.

Kenny Rogers to start Wednesday

Well it looks like the Tigers have filled one hole in their rotation, for now until someone else gets hurt. Kenny Rogers is back and will start against the White Sox on Wednesday. Chad Durbin will be Thursday’s starter, and with a pen full of reinforcements from Toledo his role as reliever shouldn’t be missed.

Justin Verlander gets and extra day off and it will be Verlander/Robertson/Bonderman against Seattle this weekend.

Leyland sets rotation: Rogers to start Wednesday, Durbin Thursday – MLive.com: Detroit Tigers

Game 137: Tigers at Athletics

PREGAME: It’s kind of a Jekyll and Hyde pitching match-up today. Nate Robertson has been all over the place, shutting down Cleveland and getting knocked around by the Royals. For the A’s it will be Dallas Braden, who’s last big league start ended in the 2nd inning when Magglio Ordonez homered twice off him. Since then he threw 2 complete games in the minors in which he’s allowed only 8 hits and 2 walks while fanning 26 (17 of those in his last start).

Game Time 4:05

DET @ OAK, Sunday, September 2, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Blogger night at the ballpark

On September 11th Comerica Park will be overrun by bloggers. Okay, so maybe the park won’t be overrun, but one or two rows in the the pavilion will be chuck full of us. Myself, Ian from Bless You Boys, Eric from D-Town Baseball, Samara from Roar of the Tigers, Greg Eno from several places, Matt Wallace from Take 75 North, and Brian from Tigerblog will be crashing the back end of the doubleheader and there’s room for you.

Due to lukewarm demand when I raised the question around the all star break, I’ve only held a small block of tickets and those will be first come first serve. If we have lots more DTW readers interested in coming, let me know and we can try and increase our ticket numbers.

The cost is $15 and that gets you a pavilion ticket. The actual cost of the ticket is $13 due to a group discount, but with a stamp, an envelope, and paypal fees it comes in somewhere between $14 and 15 and I just rounded up. The extra spare change will be my handling charge and maybe we can scrape together enough to send Rod Allen some pink cotton candy.

If you’re interested, use the contact form or email me. I’ll respond with payment instructions. I’ll have the tickets in hand on Tuesday or Wednesday and will promptly mail them out when I get a)the tickets and b)your payment.

Hope you can make it, and hope I don’t get stuck holding any unused tickets.

Game 135: Tigers at Athletics

PREGAME: It’s just not an A’s series without facing Joe Blanton. Fortunately the Tigers find him to be kind of hittable, at least so far this year. They rocked him for 9 runs in just 4 innings in his last start (the infamous come back from way down only to get blown out again when Macay McBride was left on the mound to languish).

The Tigers send out Virgil Vasquez who will make his 3rd start. One was really bad, another was pretty good. But he still doesn’t have a win so here’s hoping the Tigers can get him a game ball.

Game Time 10:05

Andrew Miller Shut Down

Virgil Vasquez will start on Friday night meaning that a spot on the 25 man roster needed to be created. That spot was formerly held by Andrew Miller. And this doesn’t sound like roster maneuvering. Danny Knobler reports that Miller will start working with Chuck Hernandez to prepare for 2008.

Miller was certainly rushed to the big leagues and handing him a spot in the rotation – and expecting him to hold it the rest of the season – was foolish. I had no problem with him making some spot starts or taking a couple turns in the rotation while guys were injured. But putting a young man in the rotation who didn’t even have a full season pro season to

  1. 1. Build stamina
  2. 2. Refine a 3rd pitch

was a poor decision.

His inability to consistently throw strikes manifested itself in 100 pitch 5 inning outings that screamed he just wasn’t ready. The stuff is there, and it was on display as he’d strike out the side in an inning. But the consistency wasn’t, as in those same innings he’d issue a couple walks between said strikeouts.

Now instead of having a pitcher they can count on in 2008 – like with Verlander going into 2006 – they are going to have to hope for a nice spring and that he can progress at the major league level.

I’m glad they are calling it a season for him. I just wish they hadn’t rushed matters in the first place. This was a Jim Leyland decision and I’m disappointed that Dave Dombrowski let him sign off on it. It’s Leyland’s job to give the team the best chance to win each day. It’s Dombrowski’s job to position the team to win each year. And I worry that this has short circuited his development.

Tigers tell Miller to get ready for 2008 – MLive.com: Detroit Tigers

When PTBNL becomes P and other roster moves

With the minor league seasons wrapping up, there’s no time like the present to name those players the Tigers acquired when dealing Mike Maroth and Craig Monroe.

In the Maroth trade the Tigers get back reliever Chris Lambert, who certainly doesn’t have impressive numbers. Lee breaks it down, but the best part about Lambert may be that he’s only 24 and still has time on his side to develop into something useful. So if you’re keeping track, the Tigers acquired Mike Maroth for Bryce Florie and in turn sent Maroth to the Cardinals for roster fodder. In the meantime they got nearly 900 innings at somewhere between replacement level and average production for cheap.

In exchange for Craig Monroe the Tigers pick up Clay Rapada. Rapada is 26 and has struck out better than 8 batters per 9 innings throughout his minor league career. However the lefty has walked 4 per 9 as well. He was placed on the 40 man roster and to make room Aquilino Lopez was outrighted.

Also, Yorman Bazardo, Jose Cappellan, Mike Hessman, and Omar Infante will be part of the roster expansion. And yet Chris Shelton remains marooned in northern Ohio. Bazardo could be in line for a spot start depending on how things shake out in the rotation.

Speaking of which, Virgil Vasquez has been tabbed to start on Friday over Chad Durbin. Not a bad move in my estimation, but it became more of a necessity when Robertson and Miller burned through both Jason Grilli and Zach Miner making Durbin the lone long man in the pen on Friday.

Game 135: Tigers at Royals

PREGAME: Things that annoy:

Starting off a game post after winning a series with they Yankees by saying “the Tigers look to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Royals…”

I can talk pitching match-ups until I’m blue in the face, but only one pitcher matters in this one and it is Jeremy Bonderman who has to perform. I don’t even care if he gives up a run in the first inning. I just want to see a strong effort that spares a bullpen that was burnt out in the first 2 games of this series. I want him to go shut down a team and get the Tigers a win. It’s that simple.

POSTGAME
: Yeah, totally sorry about the game thread today folks. I knew I was going to be away from a computer the bulk of the day, so I used one of the neat features with the blog software that allows me to schedule a post ahead of time. So I wrote the game thread last night, and set it to go live like it were a night game. But it wasn’t. Plus it was actually game 134 not 135. See, the season is wearing on me too. Sloppy play on my part.

As for the game itself, Bonderman was good. Yes it was the Royals, but look how much trouble Robertson and Miller had the last 2 nights, and how much trouble Bonderman has had regardless of the opponent. He made it through 7 innings on only 87 pitches and 63 were for strikes. A pretty incredible ratio no matter who you’re pitching against.

And Grandy and Ordonez powered the offense, with…wait for it…help from Timo Perez. Some may call it Jim Leyland pushing the right buttons by batting a guy who couldn’t crack the big league roster until late August at DH in the 3 hole pushing the right buttons. Or maybe it was dumb luck. Or maybe Leyland knows something that we don’t. (I’ll go with door number 2)

The offense has hardly been dormant in this series as they’ve piled up hits in each of the 3 games. Today they finally cashed in some of those baserunners into runs. And once again a solo homer sparked a crooked number inning. We’ve seen it several times in the last few weeks and it was Granderson who got it started this time.

On to the West Coast. Again.

Game 133: Tigers at Royals

PREGAME: Andrew Miller will be pitching on short rest, slightly, he of course of the 4 hour rain delay start. Here’s hoping he pounds the strike zone and doesn’t walk any lefties, like he had a propensity for doing against the Yankees. It was his first start back so I’ll cut him some slack, but he ran into the same pitch efficiency issues he did prior to the injury.

For the Royals it will be Zach Grienke who is back starting after a sabbatical in the bullpen where there was talk of him being a back end guy for the Royals. He made his first start since the beginning of May last week against the Indians and allowed just one hit and one walk in 3 innings before being lifted after 48 pitches. We’ll see how long he goes tonight.

Game Time 8:05

POSTGAME
: Ummm. Andrew Miller. Really, really, really not good. Four free passes and he didn’t even make it out of the first inning. And one of the outs was a pickoff. Nice night for Zach Miner though who came in and picked up 12 outs giving his team a chance to get back in it…but they didn’t.

Eight left on base tonight is a sign that the offense isn’t a total wasteland (it means they are getting baserunners), just very disappointing. The star tonight would of course have to be Timo Perez who had 2 doubles, a walk, and would have had a couple RBI if not for Sean Casey being the runner on first when he hit both doubles. (talk about your irony, hours after I bash the reasoning of “he can score from first on an extrabase hit”). Of course that presented Brandon Inge with 2 2nd and 3rd situations where he fanned both times. One of them being the patented check swing. So much for new approaches and breaking out of a slump.

Now the Tigers are looking to avoid a sweep by the Royals. And the 2 long men in the pen won’t be available after long outings each of the last 2 days. Bad, bad scene.

Broken Logic

Jim Leyland answered questions about one of the most inexplicable managing decisions he’s made this year, batting Timo Perez 3rd. I’m not going to continue to harp on this past this post, but even the thought process for batting Perez third is broken. Here is what Leyland told the Free Press

Leyland gave several reasons for hitting Perez third: It gave him another left-handed bat against Bannister, who has done better against right-handed batters than against lefties. Perez also could bunt and he could score from first on an extra-base hit.

Now I think the Freep mis-stated about Bannister’s splits, but getting the extra lefty bat in the lineup is the only part that made any sense. First, the idea that that your number 3 hitter would be bunting is dumb. Especially when your number 4 hitter is having an MVP season. So you use your number 3 hitter to bunt, opening up a base, and inviting an intentional walk. There is a reason that number 3 hitters don’t bunt.

Second, presuming that Perez could score from first on an extra base hit also presumes that he’d get to first base. He For someone who hasn’t broken the 300OBP barrier since 2003 (when he hit 301) that is foolish.

And if you want to look at all the players on the Tigers roster who could a)bunt and b)score from first on a single and c)bat left handed I see Curtis Granderson, Carlos Guillen, and Ramon Santiago.

Perez was a black hole amongst standout offensive performers last night and the sad thing is he performed exactly as expected.

KANSAS CITY 6, DETROIT 3: Tigers get 16 hits, but only 3 runs; Ordonez: ‘We can’t get any further behind’